What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team
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Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team
#2The idea that a baseball team could ever go undefeated for even half a season is ridiculous. No amount of data analysis can make you do that.
That would be like saying that a perfect poker player could win every hand. Even if your opponent was playing with their cards face up, sometimes he is gonna hit his inside straight on the river.
Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team
#3The idea that a baseball team could ever go undefeated for even half a season is ridiculous. No amount of data analysis can make you do that. That would be like saying that a perfect poker player could win every hand. Even if your opponent was playing with their cards face up, sometimes he is gonna hit his inside straight on the river.
I think they were aiming for very good (keeping up their 26-11 first half record) rather than undefeated.
The story as a whole shows good humility.
Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team
#4I like that this captures something very important about Data Science. The data may give the truth, but it's the story that makes people change. The story taps our emotions, which cause us to change behavior faster than hard data.
The chief analyst at a prior employer once commented that he liked people "with degrees that suggest storytelling" in addition to their math/science/engineering pedigrees.
Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team
#5The idea that a baseball team could ever go undefeated for even half a season is ridiculous. No amount of data analysis can make you do that. That would be like saying that a perfect poker player could win every hand. Even if your opponent was playing with their cards face up, sometimes he is gonna hit his inside straight on the river.
I don't follow baseball. Are you saying that a large part of baseball is luck, and you are bound to lose regardless of how skilled your team is?
Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team
#6The idea that a baseball team could ever go undefeated for even half a season is ridiculous. No amount of data analysis can make you do that. That would be like saying that a perfect poker player could win every hand. Even if your opponent was playing with their cards face up, sometimes he is gonna hit his inside straight on the river.
I don't follow baseball. Are you saying that a large part of baseball is luck, and you are bound to lose regardless of how skilled your team is?
Yes, injuries are usually attributed to bad luck and can impact a season mightily
Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team
#7The idea that a baseball team could ever go undefeated for even half a season is ridiculous. No amount of data analysis can make you do that. That would be like saying that a perfect poker player could win every hand. Even if your opponent was playing with their cards face up, sometimes he is gonna hit his inside straight on the river.
I don't follow baseball. Are you saying that a large part of baseball is luck, and you are bound to lose regardless of how skilled your team is?
Enough of it's luck that it's unlikely that a team would go undefeated for half of a season, but it's also the fact that it's hard to get a team with only the best players; most teams have a mixture of player ability. If you put the best major league team in the minor leagues they'd probably have a 90%+ winning percentage. (Highest MLB season winning percentage is 76%, longest winning streak is 26 games out of 162, including a tie.)
Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team
#8The idea that a baseball team could ever go undefeated for even half a season is ridiculous. No amount of data analysis can make you do that. That would be like saying that a perfect poker player could win every hand. Even if your opponent was playing with their cards face up, sometimes he is gonna hit his inside straight on the river.
I think they were aiming for very good (keeping up their 26-11 first half record) rather than undefeated. The story as a whole shows good humility.
They said right in the article:
"We addressed the players and laid out our goals for the season: to lead the league in the first half, and in the second half, to go undefeated."
Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team
#9It would be interesting to see some scouting models based purely on psychological and personel relationship data. What kind of metrics are best at predicting team chemistry. Sports analytics is going to complete change most sports, we are just getting started.
Re: What Happens When Baseball-Stats Nerds Run a Pro Team
#10The idea that a baseball team could ever go undefeated for even half a season is ridiculous. No amount of data analysis can make you do that. That would be like saying that a perfect poker player could win every hand. Even if your opponent was playing with their cards face up, sometimes he is gonna hit his inside straight on the river.
I don't follow baseball. Are you saying that a large part of baseball is luck, and you are bound to lose regardless of how skilled your team is?
Yes, there is a lot of luck. For one thing, the gap between very bad players and very good players is fairly small in an absolute sense; for example, a player who gets a hit 25% of the time would have trouble staying in the league, but a player who gets a hit 30% of the time has a good chance of being an all-star. A 5% increase in your success rate separates the very worst players from the very best.
There is a great saying about baseball: Every team is going to win 54 games and every team is going to lose 54 games; it is what you do with the other 54 games that counts. (There are 162 games in a season)